Gamification stuff we love: top 3 Apps for your resolutions

Gamification stuff we love: Top 3 Apps for your New Years Resolutions

With the turn of another year upon us, we are seeing reviews of the top events of the year, so we wouldn’t want you to miss out. I have created my top 3 in Apps that I found useful in supporting New Years Resolutions. In my work as a coach I usually encouraged people to set 90 day plans and then break them down into either daily or weekly missions, weekly works best for me I also have a weekly overview diary to go with this as opposed to daily which for me was too narrow a window.

During the course of this year I have been trying out a number of apps to help with getting things done consistently based on a goal I have set. Some I downloaded, used once or twice and then deleted, unfortunately that is very much the faith of most apps and those haven’t made the ranking. A few I have kept dipping in and out of and here they are in my personal order of preference:

1. Rare Candy

Rare Candy allows you to set a skill you would like to master or improve and then every time you practise it you enter the time you spent on it. So for example mastering gamification for me means reading articles books, taking courses, researching projects, delivering projects, following others in the field and also blogging on the topic. You can use the app to track the time you spend on that particular skill development or enter time blocks, which is what I tend to do. The App has cool graphics let’s you decide what you want to master and your activity earns you points to spend in the app to make it look better. It also contains dailies, which again you choose and these are little actions you do every day like for example drinking 3 glasses of water, entering something in an achievement journal, etc. You are given a level and a superhero character that reflects the same, which is fun and kept me going to achieve more.

2. Super Better

I keep dipping in and out of this app, basically because there are lots of fun and easy things included in the base app, which I wouldn’t do regularly unless I had the app, such as hug yourself or someone else, dance to the music, things like the friendly mirror (find something nice about yourself, girls you may want to include this one), etc. The app itself is fun to use and draws me back in for that very reason. You can set yourself quests and earn power-ups which then earn you points for levelling up. You can discuss your bad guys, quite a good one for people into coaching to become aware of the bad things that trip you up and steer you of track and you can set up allies, which again if you are being coached that person may be a great ally, but this could also be a trusted friend or family member or both. They can in turn suggest activities etc. The app explains the science behind it also for those of you curious about why it works.

I dedicated a previous blog post in this column about it and have to say it remains one of my favourites.

3. Moodkit

I downloaded Moodkit quite some time ago when doom and gloom were easier than happy and it helped tracking mood swings and events that triggered them. This app has the least gamification of all three apps, it only has a mood tracker where you rate your mood out of 10 and it shows a chart of how it has progressed. However the app does contain a great amount of information on enhancing your mood with suggestions and also areas to focus on such as enjoyment, productivity, social, physical and healthy habits. You again as in the previous app commit to a number of actions and track how you are doing in the in app journal and you decide when it is completed. When you indicate completion of a commitment, it asks you how you engaged in the activity and also what impact it had on your mood. I like it for the focus it gives and the amount of information that is contained within.

This concludes my top 3 apps for keeping New Years Resolutions, however I would love to hear what helps you and which apps keep you going.